Top of the World
by difficile
Summary: And never had he felt so self-satisfyingly free. Balthier/Vaan.


**_Author's Notes_**: Written as a secret santa gift on the balthier/vaan community at livejournal to a very respectable author who deserves far more than this.

I don't own FFXII. Otherwise it'd be rated M because of my wicked director skills and ways with yaoi.

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**Top of the World.**

His heart sank to the very depths of his being. He was pretty damn sure his eyes were the size of saucers and his mouth dropped to his feet. As for what he said, or whatever unintelligible garble tumbled from his lips, Vaan himself was unsure.

All he knew is that it was gone – it was gone. It. Was. Gone.

The Aerodome was heart-wrenchingly empty. The shimmer of silver and bronze, the huge mass of space occupied by tangible beauty, it was all unseen, it was just fucking _gone._

Vaan didn't know what to think, he didn't remember _how_ to think when the precious airship seemingly disappeared into thin air from Her dock, when he strolled in that morning to do his daily check and found nothing there. But…this was her home for the time being, Vaan thought helplessly, that was her little storage room until…he came back.

But _he_ was dead. At least, that's what the public had convinced him, that's even what _Penelo_ had managed to convince him, ten months after the fall of Bahamut when no word was sent or uttered of the two heroic sky pirates' survival. His hope had waned notably month after month – heck, even day after day, all since that very second he managed to anchor the Strahl back at Rabanastre after defeating Vayne.

"We'll be waiting," Vaan had promised. _I'll be waiting. _

And so he had waited. And waited. And worried and stayed up all night for a week, making himself ill from not eating or sleeping, just waiting, wishing, hoping.

He had kept the Strahl clean, he had flown her gently, climbing the skies once or twice with her when he had felt daring enough. He had even slept in it for at least a month with the childish hope that one day he'd wake up to a cocky grin and chestnut eyes beckoning him to_ get the bloody hell out of my bed, churl._ Because his bed still smelled like him, like cedar and spice and gunpowder, an awful mixture of scents Vaan had become far too fond of when resting in the arms of the sky pirate throughout their journey. His dreams of the pirate had once seemed so eerily real, he could feel the man's warmth and hear his voice so clearly, that when he woke up to only tears prickling the corners of his eyes, Vaan felt them threaten to overflow.

But the sights portrayed in his dreams had never come; that richly accented voice that made his heart hammer against his chest had not truly been heard. Now Vaan could only imagine what the pirate would say, dead or not, on finding out his precious airship was stolen.

"_If there's one scratch on her when I get back—"_

"Oh _god_," Vaan gasped, his hands trembling at his sides – his eyes were deceiving him, yes, they must have been; the Strahl couldn't just disappear! It couldn't, it just wasn't possible! No one else knew how to unlock the security code, no one else knew how to operate the unique dual-winged system that had even driven Her original Archadian creator to toss her aside. No one but him, no one but… two others.

_Maybe…_

A spark of joyous hope welled up in Vaan and he suddenly jumped, looking around the spacious room lined with oil canisters and cords of all kinds, before he finally noticed a floating blue crystal in the middle of the room. The sunlight dappling through the cracks in the wall sent a blinding glare of the blue crystal Vaan's way and he winced as he jogged over to the massive rock spinning slowly in mid-air.

He didn't know what to think, what to expect when he plucked the small, folded letter lined with ornate designs and gold leafing and _only Balthier would do that, only he would do that, it's him, it's him, it's him._

It felt heavy in his hands, for an envelope. Vaan's fingers trembled and it took more than enough time for him to steady them before he could properly open it. His heart jumped slightly when a small ring tumbled out, his mind reeling with questions he couldn't even begin to answer. Instead, he settled for reading the neatly written note as he grasped the small ring with sweating fingers.

_Something more valuable – the Cache of Glabados. _

_I await in Bervania._

_PS - Give this to the queen, would you?_

Vaan suddenly felt dizzy; the _damned_ letter wasn't even signed and yet he could still hear that voice more clearly than ever before from those written words that swam before him. The blond's breath hitched in his throat and he turned it over once, then again, searching for some secret fold or extra letter slipped somewhere, somehow acknowledging him and him only – _I'm alive too, y'know! _

But that was it, it was written before him – Balthier was alive, Fran too most likely. It had been a year; what had taken him so long, what had…what had happened in those months? After all those words shared, after that pact of trust formed, after those intimate touches and hints of something more than just a flight of fancy, he did not even get a mention in this…this…what was this? A request? A salutation? A fucking _joke_?

"_You _can_ fly her Vaan, just do it like I taught you_."

Balthier's old words hit Vaan like a Shock spell, overflowing through a broken barricade, and the Rabanastran had no choice but to let the nostalgia take over.

_Like you taught me…_

Like he taught him, with light banter and sarcastic remarks, with a hand over his own and little private jokes laced with sarcasm, with a little world Vaan thought he could finally grasp and keep without losing to the wake of chaos. Like he taught him with patience and a smile and oddly comforting encouragement.

_You taught me so many things._ _You taught me to love again, to learn to trust, to grow up. _

"_Believe what you want. Whatever it takes to make you happy."_

Once he believed he was loved. Once he believed he loved, once he believed he had something worth fighting for, some_one_ worth fighting for, waiting for until the end of time. Once he believed words of amour directed towards him, once he believed in anything that slipped the lips of a sickeningly seductive Archadian.

Believing never got him anywhere but heartbreak.

Once Vaan believed he could be happy. Once Vaan believed he was wanted, needed, seen as worthy before the eyes of someone he shamelessly adored.

But in those written words, all of those beliefs were suddenly thrown into the summer's wind, never meant to be found again, hoping to be lost in the heat of midnight's sandstorm.

_But now…I believe you're a jerk. I believe you don't care. I believe I never want to see you again, I believe you broke my heart, and I believe I wish you were dead. _

"_I _am_ the Leading Man. Might need to do something heroic_. _Don't worry, I'll teach you how to fly her."_

And Vaan remembered how unquestionably happy and scared it made him. But suddenly that memory hit Vaan hard, like that first wave that hit him on the Phon Coast when he knew he couldn't swim, like a battle-axe against his shield, like Ashe's condescending glare.

_You used me. You never wanted to do me any favors – you did it all for your sake, for your little act. I never mattered, is that it? Do you even remember how to write my name, do you even remember my name? Or me? It wouldn't have been so hard if you'd just said something, shown yourself or…or at least… acknowledged me. Is that so much to ask, _Leading Man_? Or would that crack your ego far too much, to admit you gave a damn about someone other than yourself?!_

Vaan's emotions were changing before him, and his head hung low as he glared daggers through the parchment in his hands. Sweat formed at the crease of his brow and the sudden urge to chuck Ashe's ring across the hangar overwhelmed him for just a fleeting moment before he read that sentence again.

"_I await in Bervania."_

Vaan felt his insides churn and contort in waves of emotion he thought he purged himself of so long ago, when Balthier's lips brushed against his own and kissed away his pain, when the war ended and the orphans had homes, when the Imperials no longer lined the streets of his city.

Vaan's grip closed around the parchment, crushing it within his metal handguard, and he snarled. With a shuddering breath he shot his head up towards the roof of the hangar and shouted, voice laden with bitterness.

"You take people for granted, you always have, and you always will. Well guess what, Balthier? _Guess what_?!"

He was crying now. The tears were hot and scalding as they tumbled down his cheeks and ran across his trembling lips. All he could see was that grin, all he could hear was that laugh, Balthier's laugh, echoing incessantly through his mind. Vaan's voice trembled and cracked as he yelled louder.

"You can wait for me, you can keep waiting until the end of time! I don't need you, I don't need you, I_ hate _you!"

Vaan always hated lying to himself.

But later, as Vaan stared at the shrinking expanse of the Estersand below him when he grasped the _Galbana's_ steering control, he felt his heart swell with some sort of bitter pride. Above Dalmasca he felt a part of him piece back together; the sunlight felt nice on his skin where it once bothered him so… he felt refreshed.

…He felt alive again when he thrust his arms forward, sending the Galbana soaring off with dizzying speed to the polar opposite direction of Bervania, to a new sky he was going to show himself and no one else.

_I await at the top of the world, where you can only hope to catch me._


End file.
